this is a fun book
it's split focus on human empire politics and ancient alien lore is how i wish most space opera went

I should have just started with Howling Dark and used my context clues to fill in the gaps I missed. Or read a summary. Literally half the shit in this book should have been cut or glossed over.

I can totally tell this was his debut book. Not only is the plot meandering, but so is his prose. He often overdescribes things that are better left unmentioned, sometimes even repeats sentiments and descriptions.

Does the MC in this remain a giant simp cuck? And I don't use these terms lightly, the introduction of the girl he thirsts over and their interactions have been pure cringe, not to mention the part where you get a scene straight out of an NTR manga where she forgets about their appointment and he walks in on her out of breath from getting railed by a bell boy as she answers the door in only her t-shirt, which is a literal meme I've seen uploaded on the boorus a lot. It was actually pure comedy.

His self pity is getting pathetic too, like it was understandable when they were gonna send him to the inqisition to be a torturer, but when he's like "woe is me they'll marry me to this extremely hot girl like a piece of meat and make me lord of a fucking planet and I must cry if my life plans aren't going 100% as I want them to" he starts to become a bit insufferable.